Help! Water in housing!

[shelbyrose]

Advice please! Just opened up my nauticam housing and there was a very tiny amount of water inside. As in a few drops around the edges…. My leak detector was still green and the alarm only started maybe 30 seconds after I opened it. It had been soaking in a rinse tank (after having done two dives without issue and without opening the housing) and there were no bubbles coming out. 
 

so two questions:

1) what might have caused this? I’m in Egypt and it’s super hot, so could it be condensation?? Or perhaps water got in as I opened it? I examined the o ring carefully and it looked totally fine…
 

2) how do I best dry it out now? I’ve tried to dry it by hand the best I can but I can see a tiny tiny amount of moisture in a couple of places that I can’t reach with my cloth.

 

Thank you for any help!! 

[vkalia]

I can’t speak for your housing but i have gotten a few drops into mine by not being carefully about ensuring that the housing was fully dry before i opened it.   From what you describe, that is *likely* the case here, but you may want to test by submerging the housing (sans camera) in a rinse tank for a while to be safe.

 

As for how to dry it:   If you are in Egypt now, leave it out in the open in the shade.    Should dry pretty fast.      Or see if the center has a powered blower that you can use to blast the moisture off too.    

 

Depending on where the moisture is, you can also open and close the housing in a way that water doesnt go in (I have done it a couple of times when i needed to change a battery and didnt have the ability to  dry the housing entirely.   It helps to have a buddy assist with this).

 

Good luck!

[Chris Ross]

29 minutes ago, shelbyrose said:

Advice please! Just opened up my nauticam housing and there was a very tiny amount of water inside. As in a few drops around the edges…. My leak detector was still green and the alarm only started maybe 30 seconds after I opened it. It had been soaking in a rinse tank (after having done two dives without issue and without opening the housing) and there were no bubbles coming out. 
 

so two questions:

1) what might have caused this? I’m in Egypt and it’s super hot, so could it be condensation?? Or perhaps water got in as I opened it? I examined the o ring carefully and it looked totally fine…
 

2) how do I best dry it out now? I’ve tried to dry it by hand the best I can but I can see a tiny tiny amount of moisture in a couple of places that I can’t reach with my cloth.

 

Thank you for any help!! 

Did you open the housing to change the battery prior to this?  Water will cling to the o-ring and when you close a clamshell style housing it can push some of this water inside.   If it was the first dive it could just be water drops dislodging as you open the housing.   Do you have a vacuum system on the housing?

I would suggest to pull the o-ring and dry underneath it in the groove, shake the o-ring dry, clean and grease it and re -install. 

For drying the housing, do you have access to a fan, a hair dryer or perhaps the dive operator can provide an air gun attached to a scuba tank to blow out the housing, use the airflow to dry out the inside of the housing.

 

Take care when you open the housing and watch for water drops.  Dry off the o-ring before you close the housing .  Have a lint free cloth ready to wipe up any drops that are clinging to the o-ring when you open the  housing.

 

As to where the water came from, I checked current weather in Marsa alam and it said 37° and 26% humidity, so it's quite unlikely to be condensation.

[TimG]

Argh!

 

Take your time and work steadily.......

 

As the guys say, use whatever you can find to blow out any water, eg, air blower, hair dryer.

 

- Remove any batteries

 

- Wipe the inside of the housing as much as you can with a cloth dampened with fresh water.

 

- The ship will most likely have contact cleaner on board. Spray some on a clean cloth a wipe any electrical contacts in the housing. Check any batteries for corrosion and replace if necessary.

 

- Check the o-ring for tiny splits

 

- Once you've done all that, and the housing is dry, take it for a dive without a camera and check there is no further leak.

 

Fingers crossed.

 

Hard to say what might have caused it. Hopefully just water when you opened the housing. But "a very ting amount" doesn't sound like water drops.....

 

[JustinO]

Is there a chance that your rig got nudged in the tank?  That's one of the classic areas where damage can occur. Personally I never take my eyes off it when I'm rinsing it - a 30 second dunk followed by a working of all the buttons under the water, then I take it out. 

As others suggest, next step is to dry it off completely (including the port glass to avoid unsightly marks) before opening it, or releasing the vacuum. 

 

Whereabouts was the water?  near the vacuum release might suggest that as a cause, but that will look like a fine spray. Worth checking all the vulnerable areas (basically all o-rings) including where an eyepiece docks in, the port, etc.  It might not be from the main o ring, just perhaps gathered there as a result of the position the camera was in in the tank. 

 

If you have a wet macro lens / magnifying glass to hand, might also be worth looking through that to see if any tiny hairs/ grit are in either side of the o ring seats. 

 

And as all say, definitely do a dry run without a camera.  

[Dave_Hicks]

Never leave your camera in a rinse tank, especially if you don't have a vacuum on your housing. There is no pressure to squeeze the port and back together so the port oring can be dislodged and leak with ease. 

 

If you have a working vacuum, you have bigger issues. Likely a leaking button or knob. 

[Chris Ross]

1 minute ago, Dave_Hicks said:

Never leave your camera in a rinse tank, especially if you don't have a vacuum on your housing. There is no pressure to squeeze the port and back together so the port oring can be dislodged and leak with ease. 

 

If you have a working vacuum, you have bigger issues. Likely a leaking button or knob. 

I agree never leave a camera alone in a rinse tank, bad things can happen. 

 

However the vacuum doesn't hurt you in this situation it helps.  Typically you have a 200 mbar vacuum in a housing like Nauticam and this is exactly equivalent to being 2m under water.  What is important is the pressure difference.  200 mBar is 0.2 kgf/cm2.  On a small compact housing measuring say 14 x 10 cm this means the closing force is 0.2 x 14 x 10 = 28 kg.  This means the housing back will be very difficult to open, particularly the clamshell style where you can't push the back sideways at all.  All that matters is the air pressure outside is greater than the air pressure inside.

 

One of the big benefits of the vacuum systems is that it pre-loads the o-rings and that means it's much less likely to leak in shallow water.

[shelbyrose]

Many thanks everyone for the quick and thoughtful replies! I will definitely be more cautious about the rinse tank in the future just in case! It is a big rinse tank and only one other person was using it, plus the vacuum was still on, so I think this time it probably wasn’t due to that. 
 

I managed to dry it out(I just let it dry in the air for a few minutes for whatever I couldn’t reach otherwise) and it seems to be okay. Tested it out in the water, ultimately for about an hour, and no issues thankfully. The drops were along the edges and there was definitely some water in the external latch, so I’m feeling more confident it must have been my error in allowing some water to enter when I opened it. Hopefully all good now 🤞 

 

Out of curiosity, does anyone know how reliable the nauticam leak detector is? 
 

Many thanks again for the advice! I really appreciate it. 

[TimG]

3 minutes ago, shelbyrose said:

Out of curiosity, does anyone know how reliable the nauticam leak detector is? 

 

I don't know about the Nauticam, but on the Subal, if you moisten a finger and put it across the leak alarm prongs: BAAAH, BAAAH, BAAAH.....   I'd imagine the Nauticam would be similar.

 

Good news on the rest!

[Lewis88]

15 minutes ago, TimG said:

 

I don't know about the Nauticam, but on the Subal, if you moisten a finger and put it across the leak alarm prongs: BAAAH, BAAAH, BAAAH.....   I'd imagine the Nauticam would be similar.

 

Good news on the rest!

Nauticam is the same. Very sensitive. 

 

I had my leak detector go off on a dive (hair on the o-ring broke the vacuum). Caught it early where it was a teaspoon or less water in the housing. Was able to dry it out, clean with some alcohol, and go on with my trip.

[Architeuthis]

I had a similar problem with Nauticam housing last year: maybe half a teaspoon of water inside. I noticed it immediately, as it was in a very cold mountain lake and I got condensation on the domeport what made photos impossible...

 

After the dive, I noticed that three screws of an extension were missing (already as it came from the factory). I wrote to several Nauticam dealers, some wrote this was probably the reason, other said it cannot be the reason. Backscatter was so kind to supply me, free of charge, with spare screws...

 

Until today I do not know what the reason was, but after insertion of the missing screws and fixing the entire part with four screws, I never had this problem again...

 

=> I posted this in the old forum. Better have a look on the photo in the first post there and check, whether you also miss some screws (just to be on the safe side): https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/71358-dimensions-of-screws-for-nauticam-n120-extensions/

 

 

Wolfgang

Edited June 13 by Architeuthis

[JustinO]

3 hours ago, shelbyrose said:

Out of curiosity, does anyone know how reliable the nauticam leak detector is? 

As Lewis says, very.  I test my battery and the circuit integrity a month before each trip using a damp cotton bud - works very well... loud enough to spook the cat (well, that's one way to minimise the risk of a stray hair I suppose)!

Glad all seems to be well, and enjoy the trip!

Edited June 13 by JustinO

[shelbyrose]

3 hours ago, Lewis88 said:

Nauticam is the same. Very sensitive. 

 

I had my leak detector go off on a dive (hair on the o-ring broke the vacuum). Caught it early where it was a teaspoon or less water in the housing. Was able to dry it out, clean with some alcohol, and go on with my trip.

Amazing! I’m glad to hear that (and glad your camera was alright). Thanks!

[shelbyrose]

2 hours ago, Architeuthis said:

I had a similar problem with Nauticam housing last year: maybe half a teaspoon of water inside. I noticed it immediately, as it was in a very cold mountain lake and I got condensation on the domeport what made photos impossible...

 

After the dive, I noticed that three screws of an extension were missing (already as it came from the factory). I wrote to several Nauticam dealers, some wrote this was probably the reason, other said it cannot be the reason. Backscatter was so kind to supply me, free of charge, with spare screws...

 

Until today I do not know what the reason was, but after insertion of the missing screws and fixing the entire part with four screws, I never had this problem again...

 

=> I posted this in the old forum. Better have a look on the photo in the first post there and check, whether you also miss some screws (just to be on the safe side): https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/71358-dimensions-of-screws-for-nauticam-n120-extensions/

 

 

Wolfgang

Oh wow I’ll definitely check this out! Thanks so much. 
 

52 minutes ago, JustinO said:

I test my battery and the circuit integrity a month before each trip using a damp cotton bud - works very well... loud enough to spook the cat (well, that's one way to minimise the risk of a stray hair I suppose)!

This is very smart! Will add to my future trip prep checklists 🙂

Edited June 13 by shelbyrose

[Chris Ross]

6 hours ago, JustinO said:

As Lewis says, very.  I test my battery and the circuit integrity a month before each trip using a damp cotton bud - works very well... loud enough to spook the cat (well, that's one way to minimise the risk of a stray hair I suppose)!

Glad all seems to be well, and enjoy the trip!

you don't actually need a cotton bud, a damp finger does just fine.  One less piece of plastic waste in the waste stream each month.

[Chris Ross]

9 hours ago, shelbyrose said:

Many thanks everyone for the quick and thoughtful replies! I will definitely be more cautious about the rinse tank in the future just in case! It is a big rinse tank and only one other person was using it, plus the vacuum was still on, so I think this time it probably wasn’t due to that. 
 

I managed to dry it out(I just let it dry in the air for a few minutes for whatever I couldn’t reach otherwise) and it seems to be okay. Tested it out in the water, ultimately for about an hour, and no issues thankfully. The drops were along the edges and there was definitely some water in the external latch, so I’m feeling more confident it must have been my error in allowing some water to enter when I opened it. Hopefully all good now 🤞 

 

Out of curiosity, does anyone know how reliable the nauticam leak detector is? 
 

Many thanks again for the advice! I really appreciate it. 

The Leak detectors are reliable but they do need some liquid water to reach them to activate them, a drop or two may not set them off.  I agree it's very likely water from opening the housing.  You can get your self a hand held blower bulb (I use the Giotto rocket blower) and use that to blow away excess water drops along the seam and in the latch mechanism.  It gets water that a towel won't reach.  A microfibre cloth (lint free) is useful to wipe down the o-ring to remove any remaining droplets.  I keep one in a clean ziplock to stop it picking up grit and hair for this purpose.

 

On a side note water droplets like this are likely the source of the myth that leaving the housing in the sun causes condensation.  The root cause is actually the water that vapourises and then re-condenses on the glass port. 

[bghazzal]

Ouch - Sorry to hear this - very good advice in the thread already, but I'll add to be extra careful with the NALX10 housing - check out this report as well: 

https://waterpixels.net/forums/topic/1243-catastrophic-housing-flood-this-week/#comment-6644

A few years back, I had a leak on what was  the third dive with my NALX10, 45 minutes into a shallow-water macro dive in Thailand, half a teaspoon of water in, toasted camera, and it turned out electronics (they seemed to work after service, but started behaving erratically, and had to be changed).
So full service, then a second round to change the electronics by Nauticam's Japanese dealer.

The scariest thing is that I never knew what happened - the fact that it happened in a shallow dive with very little pressure change is concerning, especually since the housing had been vaccum-pulled and on green for 3 hours before the dive, never knew what had happened...

Don't want to jinx it, but it's been good since.

What has become my routine since is to inspect the o-ring and housing groove when opening the housing of course, but also systematically grease the o-ring after each diving day Iwith the minimal amount of Nauticam grease - just to make sure everything is smooth, clean and help the o-rign slide into the groove easily.
 O-ring maintenance seems to be much more important / less forgiving on small-sized, single o-rign clam-shell designs like the NALX10.
I also pull the vaccum much longer in advance, like the day before, but this won't be practical on a liveaboard...

And yes, stay away from rinse tanks...

Otherwise it's quite easy to get water on the o-ring when opening if it's not super dry - wiping the housing down with a couple of sports towels (one for very wet state, one for when it's drier), and then blowing a bit compressed air works - if you don't have access to compressed air you can, for the future, buy a nozzle for your LPI hose, turning the remaining 50 bar in your tank into a compressed air device, they work great and you can adjust the pressure of the air you're blowing.

Be extra carefful under the tray, hinges and also under the latch, where water always accumulates and is hard to remove with some air pressure.



Also make sure to dry the area around the vaccum valve, as it could suck in water as you press it to release the vaccum.
Lastly, but careful to overpull the vaccum on such a small volume compact camera housing - Chris has more info on this, but there is a goldilocks zone to be found, as you want to avoid both over/under-vaccuming.

 

Edited June 14 by bghazzal

[shelbyrose]

2 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

You can get your self a hand held blower bulb (I use the Giotto rocket blower) and use that to blow away excess water drops along the seam and in the latch mechanism.  It gets water that a towel won't reach. 

I actually have this exact tool with me here! Never thought to use it to dry off the housing but this is a really excellent idea and I’ll start doing this. 🙂 thanks!

[shelbyrose]

Thanks for all of this, Ben! Great advice as usual.
 

Sorry to hear what happened to you before—terrifying!! I am pretty religious about regreasing the o-ring daily so will definitely keep that up!
 

And I didn’t realize you could over or under pull the vacuum! I usually just do it until the light turns green and then one more. How do you typically do it? @Chris Ross definitely appreciate any other advice on this point!

[bghazzal]

9 minutes ago, shelbyrose said:

Sorry to hear what happened to you before—terrifying!! I am pretty religious about regreasing the o-ring daily so will definitely keep that up!
 

And I didn’t realize you could over or under pull the vacuum! I usually just do it until the light turns green and then one more. How do you typically do it? @Chris Ross definitely appreciate any other advice on this point!

It's difficult to know precisely, but just keep in mind the inner volume of the NA-LX10 is tiny. I do about the same - one good pull after it's green - you really feel the resistance increasing. 3 hard pulls once it's green would probably be over-doing it on such a small housing.

Yes, I didn't know either, and it's not really explicit in the housing's service manual - it was only when I was in touch with Nauticam suppot after the leak they mentionned over-vaccuming (I copy-pasted the exchange / advice given here on WeP, as this could be problematic in some case, but as Chris also pointed out back then you don't really want to under-pull the vaccum either! 🙂

[JustinO]

On 6/14/2024 at 3:41 AM, bghazzal said:

and then blowing a bit compressed air works -

Yes, I really rate the compressed air solution - it's something I welcome at resorts and boats- a great way to blow most of the rinse water off your ports and housings before it dries and risks leaving water marks on ports/wet lenses.  The device that Ben suggests will blow air at low pressure, but be aware that  some other devices on the market don't link to the LP hose and operate at a much higher pressures.  If in the future you have access to one, I'd suggest getting into  habit of blowing air from about 12 inches away, and resisting the temptation to go closer to force air into all the nooks and crannies and get those little drops that just seem to move around the housing... I have heard stories of people forcing water into the housing this way from HP systems, likely down the button shafts, then slipping past an o ring.  Not seen or experienced it though.  

 

Best tip is to never be in a hurry to open your housing... rinse it, wipe it, dry the port glass thoroughly, then put in in the a/c camera room or your cabin if available, then go grab a coffee/a meal/ harangue your buddy over their underwater modelling skills.... you get the point!